Sacrifice and Sorrow

This is a bit of a repeat from last year. But maybe worth re-reading or reading for the first time? Still?.

And so reflecting on these two days – the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and Our Lady of Sorrows and today’s Gospel, I thought I’d pull some ideas together.

The question I’ve been asking – as in this essay – is: How do the modes of contemporary media that we use to communicate faith affect the shape and experience of faith – both of the speaker and the listener?

This, as you recall, was the question in the novel The Hack – and I spent some time exploring that and attempting to apply it to the present moment.

In short – contemporary modes of communication enable each of us to be a creator, a producer, a publisher and the star of whatever we make. It’s persona-based communication – put an attractive persona out there with a compelling personal narrative for people to get caught up in, and then they’ll hear your message.

In this post, I suggested that, in looking at this landscape, we remember that a product reflects its producer’s concerns. So someone who puts a lot of time and energy into putting herself out there is (to be circular about it) probably going to be a person whose understanding of success and goal-meeting and fulfillment is – putting herself out there. Joy = creating something and getting attention for a media product and message that centers on them. Oh sure, to encourage and inspire you, but still.

Yes, I know it’s circular. But then – the process is circular. It just is.

All I’m saying is that if the Spiritual Guru Flavor of the Season is telling you to that fulfillment and joy happens when you Wash Your Face and Claim Your Awesomeness – they’re just telling you about what gets them jazzed and hoping that by…putting themselves and this narrative out there – they can make a living.

Even if it’s couched in religious or vaguely spiritual terms – bottom line, yeah, it’s marketing and trying to make a living.

While – as Bert Flax’s story reminds us – doing some good along the way. He’s doing so much good. 

So the question worth asking is – does any of this overwhelming message of self-actualization and fulfillment and worldly happiness have anything to do with the Gospel?

Not really. Not at its core. The fruit of faith can certainly be self-acceptance and peace and even worldly “success” or prosperity – as we get our lives together, try to stop being a jerk and see ourselves and the world more clearly, sure. Who knows what can happen?

But as a spiritual goal? As a test of faith? Nope.

And here we come to the issue – an important question. Or, as Paul says, the opportunity to test everything. 

In a persona-soaked spiritual landscape in a privileged, materially prosperous culture, what is lost?

Marian devotion focuses on contemplation of the relationship between the Mother and her divine Son. In their prayers and sufferings, in their thanksgiving and joy, the faithful have constantly discovered new dimensions and qualities which this mystery can help to disclose for us, for example when the image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is seen as a symbol of her deep and unreserved loving unity with Christ.

It is not self-realization, the desire for self-possession and self-formation, that truly enables people to flourish, according to the model that modern life so often proposes to us, which easily turns into a sophisticated form of selfishness. Rather it is an attitude of self-giving, self-emptying, directed towards the heart of Mary and hence towards the heart of Christ and towards our neighbour: this is what enables us to find ourselves.

In other words, in other paradoxical words:

If this is not your thing, if your life seems too quiet and humble and even painful to boast about, if, on a daily basis, you put aside your own desires so you can serve others, and the current flow makes you wonder about that, prompts you to wonder sometimes if you’re actually living an “authentic” “vibrant” “fulfilling” “faith-filled” life? If – and this pertains the shape of 2020 – circumstances have challenged and upended that as a goal and you’re having to spend time shifting gears, serving others and making sacrifices for them and the greater good instead of chasing your own goals? And if this year of 2020, when you look back, will be defined, most of all by words like confusion, grief and loss?

Well, hang on – and it’s not me saying this. It’s the Catholic spiritual tradition, from Jesus himself on. Be assured:

In your sacrifice and, when it comes, in your sorrow, you are close – very close – the heart of Christ. 

And so in that, peace.